JADE: MY SUICIDE HORROR — (The Sunday Mirror)

Monday,April23rd,2007

Original article no longer available

The Sunday Mirror

April 2007

By Tom Carlin

Jade Goody

EXCLUSIVE DESPERATE JADE TELLS HOW RACE ROW OVER TV BIG BRO MADE HER FEEL LIKE SUICIDE

JADE Goody told last night of the dramatic moment she contemplated suicide after her Celebrity Big Brother nightmare – then pulled back at the last moment for the sake of her kids. The shamed star was ready to swallow a lethal cocktail of drugs after becoming one of the most hated women in Britain.But Jade, 25, put the tablets back in her medicine cabinet after suddenly thinking of her sons Bobby Jack, three, and Freddy, two.

Speaking for the first time about her suicide blueprint, she said: “I realised in the end that if I did anything stupid my children would have to suffer the most pain ever, and I’d never want to put them through that.”

Jade came close to killing herself when her life hit rock bottom after her disastrous Celebrity BB performance in January. She had…

BEEN BRANDED a racist bully after a stream of offensive remarks about Bollywood beauty Shilpa Shetty.

LOST a string of lucrative TV and marketing contracts because of the worldwide backlash against her abusive behaviour.

FAILED to sort out her mental problems with a five-day spell in The Priory clinic.

A few days later Jade was alone one morning at her £500,000 detached home in Ongar, Essex, when she hatched her grim plan.

As she sat white-faced and numb from the constant stream of bad publicity, she remembered she also had paracetamol painkillers in her medicine cabinet upstairs.

Mixed with the anti-depressants, they would provide what she thought would be a quick end to her suffering.

Jade, who has only previously hinted at how low she had become following her appalling performance in front of millions on the Channel 4 show, said: “There were the two bottles of pills.”

But Jade resisted the urge after thinking about the devastating consequences her death would have on the two sons she remains devoted to.

She said: “For a few days at my lowest point I knew I couldn’t be left alone.

“But I also realised that if I did anything stupid to myself I would be making things even worse for my children. They are the most important thing to me in the whole world.”

And Jade’s lover Jack Tweed, 19, helped her pull herself back from the pit of despair. A close friend who arrived at the house during Jade’s lowest point said: “She couldn’t smile or cry, she just sat there white as a ghost.

“She had already told people she had thought about killing herself and she said that she wanted to die.

“She said, ‘I don’t want to be in this world any more’. Everybody took her seriously because Jade is usually such a bubbly person and everyone was seriously worried.

“Jade told them although she really did mean it and she did want to kill herself she couldn’t go through with it because she didn’t want to leave her boys on their own.

“Her boyfriend Jack was really upset because he wanted to help her. He was finding it really difficult as were all of her friends and family.” Days earlier Jade’s worried GP had sent the tearful celebrity to The Priory because he feared she was on the verge of a breakdown.

Jade said: “I had hit rock bottom and I never felt as low. I’d already been to see the psychologist and told them my fears.

“I went into The Priory for help, but couldn’t cope with the group sessions there.

“I had the breakdown already, but I was going even lower. It was doing my head in. I couldn’t do it any more. I came out after five days, but then I went even lower.

“I couldn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel at all. I wasn’t happy with myself.

“I kept thinking of my children and how they’d have to suffer over what had happened to me in the Big Brother house. They way they’d have to live their lives being slagged off because of their mum. They have to suffer because of me being called a racist. It was all becoming too much for me to take.”

Jade’s suicide admission comes after fellow housemate Jo O’Meara, who also took part in the rants against Shilpa, told of her own plan to swallow a lethal cocktail of booze and pills.

Jo, 27, said: “I wanted to kill myself. I’d had enough of that show and what it had done to me.” Jade suffered another nightmare last week as she holidayed with boyfriend Jack and her two sons on the Caribbean island of Tobago.

The pair had to flee their villa after a bush fire, and then a day later a 33,000-volt pylon crashed down feet from a pool where the kids were playing.

But loudmouth Jade appears to be recovering her natural chirpiness – and has landed her first TV part since the Big Brother disaster.

She will be interviewed for this summer’s BBC1 series You Can’t Fire Me, I’m Famous.

And producers are considering signing her and Jack up for a reality show to rival The Osbournes.

Jade said: “I know I’m not a racist and I just have to convince others the same.”